In the last three months, Leverage has published more than in any quarter since its inception thirteen years ago. This was not the publication of old material — though we’ll get to that. This was all newly produced material, which means that our production and publication capacity are both real.
From the outside, we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback, including on the fact that we’re publishing so much. One of our supporters said it seemed like Leverage is alive, though from our perspective what’s changed is not production capacity, but the ability to produce and publish at the same time.
One natural question is: Will the production and publication pace stay the same? It’s always possible we may need to pause or pivot if we have to deal with some new circumstance, but for now our anticipation is yes. We have a production schedule, we set it every month and check it every week. Production includes everything, from start to finish, ideas to research to publication, and it’s one of the ways we measure how good we’re doing.
Another question is: How did we get our visible production capacity so high? The short answer is: absolute relentlessness at learning. We spent years learning how to do research in many domains, then years learning public engagement. There’s still a lot more to learn, of course, but the payoff we’re seeing is from the learning we’ve done to date.
Leverage is (according to me) a “learning organization.” This is a type of organization that I think should exist. Most organizations don’t learn, or they forget what they’ve learned as they go. But if you can figure out how to learn and to retain the learning, then your organization can just get better and better and better.
What have we produced since January? First, we have our reports:
We have additional materials from our programs and functions:
Metascience
Hauksbee study — Hauksbee Research Highlights
Introspection
Audio — Belief Reporting Around a Topic
Bottlenecks
QuBiT brief — Testing the Quantum Biology Hypothesis
QuBiT brief — Quantum Biology and Brain Function
Then we have our communication with our board and supporters:
Board Updates
Leverage Weekly
Leverage Newsletters
That’s not to mention pieces Geoff published on his Substack, which help to give context to our work:
…or our brief exploration of Easter bunnies as an early stage science ;):
We think our production and publishing capacity is worth celebrating, but also our overall ability to learn and accumulate that learning. So here’s to many more years of learning that fits together, brick by brick, in the direction of our mission to support the scientific enterprise.
Until next time,
Oliver
p.s. Right now most of our work comes out through our newsletter. Click here to subscribe and stay up-to-date on everything Leverage.